If you want to better hone your “stalking Amber” skills, check out this interview over on Cherry Patter.  I blabbed all my favorite neighborhood spots (and put in a plea for help getting dressed).

I let Dan do the intro, a Hey Brooklyn first! We were in the studio goofing off for a while and he tried to imitate me. I don’t think he nailed it, but he made me laugh.

He has a podcast called VendrTV where he hops around the country interviewing food cart proprietors. I’m jealous. What he does is similar to what I do in terms of interviewing people with interesting stories, but he does it on camera, and he set his show up so he can travel to places. I, of course, focused on the local scene, and now I never get to go on planes. Live and learn. My next podcast is going to be called Hey Tropical Islands.

Go here to listen to the show and visit vendr.tv for the show’s site.

When I was in second grade I went to a small private school. My parents weren’t always into the details of the activities that were going on, so I often missed things like, “Dress Like a Pioneer Day” and “Bring an Ethnic Dish to Share Day”. There was also this one time I missed the part where I was supposed to give an oral report on an historical figure. I’d chosen Clara Barton because I thought her name was cool and the drawing of her on the cover of the easy-reader biography in the school’s library was pretty. I didn’t open the book, though, until right before it was time to give my report; I had it hidden under my desk while other kids gave their presentations, desperately trying to find out information on this Clara Barton person before my turn. Micah (who came from one of those families where the mom makes quilts and cookies from scratch and stuff, and who grew up and married my dear friend Jen) even had a chart or something, I’m sure, and probably gigantic pictures glued to pieces of foam board or whatever to illustrate his report, but me? Nope. No foam board. No charts. No dot-matrix printed notes. Nothing.

The night before, I had remembered the report was due, and that my book was still in the classroom. I called my grandparents to see if they had anything to help me, and my grandfather dug something out of a history book and read aloud the handful of sentences he found on Clara Barton. I was like, “That’s it?” and he was like, “That’s it.” so I wrote down what he said and hoped it would be enough.

Back to the class room: there I was, stomach sinking, heart pounding, hair everywhere because I hadn’t discovered hair gel yet, armed only with a few notes scratched on paper, some information about her early life from the book hidden under my desk (it hadn’t occurred to me to SKIP TO THE END to get to the important stuff), and the sentences from my grandpa that I knew I couldn’t repeat verbatim because that was a kind of cheating called “plagiarism”, which we had just learned about.

“Amber!” said the teacher brightly, “You’re next!”

I trudged to the front of the class room.

The report was a disaster, of course; I stumbled through it, making things up for a while, and then I trailed off and shrugged, and just stood there while everyone looked at me.

“She founded…?” my teacher prompted.

I shook my head.

“…the…Red…?”

“The Red…” I sniffed.

“The Red…uhhh…” A tear rolled down my cheek.

“The…Red…er…I don’t know.” My tiny shoulders slumped, and I felt like a total loser; a feeling I can remember like it was last week.

Clara Barton founded the Red Cross; it was her biggest achievement by far, and I had forgotten it in my report.

I hadn’t thought about all this in years, but it was on my mind when I went to bed last night, and disrupted my sleep. With the move(s) going on, Hey Brooklyn has gotten shoved around a bit, and I had only scratched the surface of preparing for today’s noon interview (normally I write the questions a few days prior, let them “marinate”, and then come back and edit to final the evening before). It was fine; they were great guys and I’m pleased with how it turned out, but the behind-the-scenes of it all was rougher than usual.

I’ve never actually had a bad interview, and I don’t have a reason to believe I ever will; I have a strict “Awesome People Only” policy, and having an awesome interview subject is 98% of the battle.

Still, every time I sit down behind the mic to do an interview, there’s always part of me that flicks to “worried about ‘Clara Barton moments’”, and I get the faintest hint of that “oh! shit!” feeling. Then, of course, I crack open my notes, and rock it out, and it’s great. But I guess I’ll never really grow up in that way.

At least now I have better hair.

Evidence that I have zero being-interviewed skills.  Zero!

Here is the interview I did with Eugene Ahn for the People You Don’t Know podcast.  (I’m the second half of the episode.)

http://www.pydkpodcast.com/?p=458

Apropos of nothing, here is a photo of me and Tino, taken by Tracy.

I left with plenty of time to get to my appointment today but I went to 8th Avenue, not 8th Street. With fifteen minutes to spare, I drove the few miles to the proper address and arrived at 3:04. Ok. Not bad. I dropped off my gear and dashed off to park, thinking it would take me no time at all.

I ended up driving about ten miles in a three-block radius. After about fifty swear words, several angst-filled poundings on the steering wheel, and a handful of prayers to gods I don’t actually believe in, I found a spot and arrived back at 3:45. This was a new personal low of mine, and I was ashamed. Also, we are nearly out of gas, and I’ve gnawed off several fingernails.

My interview went well; I get to meet the most interesting people and today was no exception. Lotta offered me water, I accepted, and it came sparkling, in a glass, with a lime. Classy! Note to self: buy limes and put them in guests’ drinks. It shows thoughtfulness.

Her newest book comes out today, and I flipped through it while we were interviewing. The projects really do seem simple, and there are several patterns included with the book. There are things to make for toddlers, too, including bibs, rattles, crib bumpers and quilts.

Order here

Months ago Rob got the idea to interview his friends and record it as a podcast (similar to StoryCorps), but never got it going. Then today, our buddy Dave is in town couch crashing while he goes to a convention, and Rob said that he wanted to do an interview him, just for the heck of it, while he was here. (We have this fancy recording booth in the house… we might as well use it!) I complained that Rob had never interviewed me before, so he set up a last-minute recording session with just the two of us. It was pretty fun!

Check out InterviewsWithFriends.com. Episode one, with yours truly.

Happy Weekend.